IFLA raises concerns about ACTA

Today at a stakeholder hearing in the European Parliament, IFLA's Director of Policy & Advocacy, Stuart Hamilton, raised severe concerns about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

"IFLA is gravely concerned by the extreme secrecy surrounding the ACTA negotiations, the potentially chilling effects of targeting intermediaries, and the continuing focus on enforcement at the expense of flexibility", he said. "We have made far less progress in creating flexibility in copyright - particularly in the digital age. ACTA compounds the problem by limiting flexibility going forward - at this point we have no ideas what technologies are going to emerge in the next decade and ACTA will lock us into an approach that is not suitable for now, let alone the future."

[via IFLA Homepage, with video of the speech of Mr Hamilton]